The Fourth Storm
by Cimbeline
Summary: Draco was a sensible man. However, some things made him feel wrong, like  hearing  a jarring note in a familiar song, or finding a typo in a well loved novel.


A/N: A oneshot, very angsty. I was working with characterization in this. The backround info is a general second war, disregarding Deathly Hallows and assuming that Draco had come to the Order's side sometime during the war. Lord Voldemort is dead.

* * *

Draco sipped from his goblet uneasily, eying the swirling couples on the dance floor. He felt sick, almost hollow, and felt like heaving. 

This feeling was not unusual to him. Draco was a sensible man; but some things made him feel wrong, like hearing a jarring note in a familiar song, or finding a typo in a well-loved novel. He had dubbed this particular feeling 'edginess'. Draco felt edgy when he thought about death, the universe, consciousness, and the empty feeling one often gets after waking up in a bed with an unfamiliar woman who smelt rankly of firewhisky. He would look at her half-remembered face, and feel a tangible _wrongness_, like she was just another cut-and-paste bint. Which, invariably, she was.

Draco shook himself and ran his hands agitatedly through his hair, trying to soothe the void feeling in his gut. He was about to give up on this particular gala, benefiting families of late war heroes. A sudden pricking sprang up in his eyes as he focused on the people dancing, which he couldn't explain. He clenched his hand stiffly on the wooden table he was leaning on, and set down his now-empty goblet. Steeling himself with a sharp breath, he briskly strode out of the ballroom.

About thirty feet away on the dance floor, Harry Potter sighed softly and gave Ginny Weasley a whisper-like kiss, almost like a breath. His sudden sweetness surprised her, and she looked into his eyes as he pulled her closer against his body. "What's wrong, love?" she inquired, and she frowned slightly as he sighed again. "It's Draco. He's left again," "What's so unusual about that? At least he didn't bring one of his 'dates' this time,"

"It's not even that, he's just.." Harry paused, looked down, as if to gather his thoughts. "He's been off, you know, like there's something just slightly broken. A fissure, you could say. Like there's some pressure that's finally overpowered him."

Ginny searched Harry's eyes for meaning, and she thought she understood. They all got like that sometimes, all of the Order had at some point or another. The 'feeling', it was called. A general sweeping unease, a point at which one's mentality undergoes a Shift. A schism of sorts, where one's mind decides whether to 'think' or to 'do'. Most had suffered through the Feeling at some point during the war, and had unconsciously chosen the easier half of the Shift, "doing".

Draco, it seemed, had begun his bout of the Feeling, and had Shifted into 'thinking'. The most painful Shift. Ginny felt pity for the blond man, and hugged Harry close.

Harry wrapped his arms tightly around her slim waist, and breathed her scent, silently thanking God and Merlin and every other damned deity that Draco was the one going through this, and not Ginny, or Remus, or Hermione. Though, remembering, Hermione's bout of the Feeling had permanently twisted the portion of his heart that was devoted to her.

When suffering through the Doing shift during the war, those affected would become almost detached, committing violent acts against the Death Eaters without remorse. As distressing as it was to watch loved ones so unaffectedly killing, it was the general consensus that it would have been worse to murder were they going against their morals and consciences aware of the lives ended so abruptly.

Hermione had gone through an almost life-altering Shift, killing her enemies thoughtlessly but also detaching herself from her friends.

Harry didn't want to think of this, not now...

But he had to force himself to remember the reason for Hermione's Shift. It was wrong to stifle the memories.

_Red light fogged her sight, the humidity of the battlefield drowning her enemies as well as her friends in a haze as she searched for Him. Ron. _

_Her first true love, maybe the only one she would ever love. The day's fighting was winding down as both parties had suffered numerous losses and were recuperating in the wake of the impending storm. Hermione needed Him, she did. If she didn't find him soon, she would die. She had killed ruthlessly today, and she needed him to hold her and tell her that it was Alright, it wasn't murder, so long as she kept in mind that they were thoughtless spewers of hate and anger. She longed to feel his reassuring warmth, his hands smoothing her hair, whispering calming words to her as she sobbed into his familiar and well-loved body. _

_So she wandered, becoming more distressed with each moment that they were separated. She tripped over a body on the battleground, only recognizing it after the tears had cleared from her eyes._

Harry clenched his jaw and squeezed Ginny even tighter, if it was even possible. She knew what he was thinking. And even after a year, an entire year without Ron, she still pressed little butterfly kisses into Harry's chest as his robes soaked up a few errant tears.

After recovering from her four-month Shift, Hermione had returned more or less the same woman, though maybe a little more reserved and harder to coax into a smile.

She had then traveled for a month, going to all the places they had dreamed of going together, and came home one day, the same and yet a different Hermione than Harry had grown up with. She grew back into herself, and it was only once in a red moon that he would ever doubt a smile or a laugh.

* * *

Draco had, at this point, wandered to the hallway in the hotel where all of the Order members' rooms were. He was about to open his door, but paused, and sighed despite himself. He couldn't handle being alone in his hotel room tonight. 

He also knew that he was suffering through a particularly bad case of the Feeling. He felt that everyone knew, and deep inside his gutted heart he felt sorry that he was hurting his friends (though new ones, at that.). He could feel their pity as they watched him spiral into a deeper form of depression, one that came with violent introspection and general anger at life in general. He could feel their eyes on him, measuring his sorrow, and was discomfited. He wanted to get through this alone.

But there was a third thing he knew at this moment in time, and that was that he couldn't get through it alone.

* * *

Hermione Granger had survived the war. Hermione Granger had survived the Feeling. But one thing Hermione Granger hadn't survived with was someone to hold on to, an anchor for when she was losing herself and someone who knew her so intimately that they were almost one being. 

Hermione was relatively happy, though. She laughed with her well-loved friends. She enjoyed her work but didn't lose herself in it. She wasn't lonely. Most of the time.

She lived in a small, brightly lit apartment near Diagon Alley and had the company of Crookshanks, who enjoyed a potent type of longevity. Hermione's friends were attentive, and she loved them. But she couldn't bring herself to mar their happiness with her occasional loneliness. She felt herself becoming slightly depressed, deceiving her friends with funny stories from Mungo's or her most recent novel purchase. She had felt good during the war. Not necessarily content, but she was confident and she made passionate decisions, knowing that each could be her last.

But Ron was gone.

She had lost herself with the person she identified herself with, the one constant in her life.

She had gotten better. She could function. She helped win the war, and had won her own personal battles. But she was lonely, and she was unsure of herself. Somehow, in the craziness of battle, she had forgotten how to function in normalcy. She knew that she would get used to it, that she just had to live with it.

Hermione knew Harry could feel it, how she felt awkward and unhappy when at night after a group dinner, everyone would separate into pairs. Harry and Ginny. Tonks and Remus. Fleur and Bill. Luna and Neville.

And then there was Draco.

Actually, there_ was _Draco. Huddled by his hotel room door. Hermione stopped and peered at him questioningly, and sighed quietly as she recognized the thoughtful yet pained look in his eyes.

She sat down across from him, and gathered his hands into hers intimately, thinking he could use some help with his current onslaught of the Feeling. He looked up from his trance at her, surprised.

Without saying anything, he gathered her into his arms and sighed into her hair.

Hermione had found another anchor.


End file.
